


Experimental Revenge

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Experimentation, Gen, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: Some things are harder to learn than others
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

“Stay down here.”

I glanced back three steps from the door, more curious at how that had almost sounded like a _request_ than the request itself.

Holmes sat in his armchair, now staring at me instead of the chemistry journal he had been updating.

“I am just going to get another journal,” I replied, waving off his words with the journal I had just filled as I turned toward the door again.

“Watson.”

I made no answer, opening the door to the landing as I wondered why he wanted me to stay in the sitting room. It was not like I was going to work in my room; I would return in a moment. He had done stranger things, however, and I wrote it off to Holmes being Holmes. Perhaps he had been quietly enjoying the scribbling of my pen. He always did think better with background noise.

That was probably it, I decided. He had been enjoying the noise of my writing, and I had interrupted his focus by getting up. With his focus already broken, there was no use in me turning back now, but I could make sure I did not interrupt again. I would put this journal away and retrieve a new one from the extras I kept in my room, but I would also grab a second fresh one to keep in my desk in the sitting room. That way, I would not interrupt his train of thought so much the next time I needed a new journal.

Slipping the journal into a pocket, I put my curiosity out of my mind and crossed the landing. The stairwell smelled amazing, and I inhaled deeply, wondering what Mrs. Hudson was cooking. I smelled basil, rosemary, pepper…

The rest of my conjecture fled before I reached the base of the stairs.

An intense wave of dizziness washed over me, nearly sending me to the floor, and I froze mid-step, gripping the wall to stay upright as my knees tried to buckle beneath me. My vision darkened around the edges, and I allowed my eyes to close as I fought to stay awake.

“Watson?” I heard from the doorway behind me. Holmes had followed me out to the landing.

I made no answer, still using the wall to stay on my feet. The dizziness passed after a moment, and I tried to open my eyes, deciding I had simply stood up too quickly.

The staircase that had been going up now went _down_ , and I quickly closed my eyes again as the vertigo returned with the realization that I appeared to be standing on the ceiling. Beyond disoriented to see tables and doors hanging from the ceiling, I leaned harder against the wall, fighting to get my bearings without hitting the floor. Too much of my balance was tied to my sight for me to easily stay upright when the room turned upside down.

Keeping my eyes closed slowly helped, and I tried to figure out what was wrong before opening my eyes again. What could cause vision problems and vertigo, but no fever?

Short of a concussion, I could think of nothing. I was only three days beyond a nasty ‘flu that had sent both of us to bed for nearly a week each, but even that had not caused such symptoms without a fever.

“Watson, answer me.”

The knowledge slammed into me as Holmes came around to look at my face, steadying me with a hand on my arm. _This_ was why he had not wanted me to leave the room. My infuriating flatmate had used me in another experiment.

I dared to open my eyes, barely glancing at where he stood in front of me before quickly closing them again as the sight intensified the dizziness. A childhood fairy tale had included a man with the ability to walk on the ceiling, but I had never thought to see it myself. I would have preferred _not_ to see it, actually. Touch informed me that I was standing against a wall, but my eyes said that either I or Holmes hung from the ceiling. No matter which it was—or even if it was neither, as I was more inclined to believe—the conflicting signals churned my stomach as if I were on a boat in the midst of a storm. I dug my fingernails into my palm, trying to wake from this bizarre dream.

Nothing happened, of course.

The hand gripping my arm squeezed briefly. “Say something, Watson.”

Even the smallest movement amplified itself several times and sent the room spinning around me, and I did not answer, more focused on staying upright and quelling the motion sickness.

He squeezed my arm again as worry crept into his tone. “Watson.”

“What did you do?” I finally growled, keeping my eyes firmly shut.

He started to ask what I meant, but I cut him off mid-word as I tried not to grow truly angry. “You used me in another experiment! _What did you do?”_

I probably imagined the loud swallow. “It was supposed to improve balance.”

“It failed,” I growled, my irritation darkly coloring the words. “How long until it wears off?”

Silence answered me, and I forced my eyes open, finally looking at him just long enough to note the frown of worry twitching his mouth. His keen gaze scanned everything from how I gripped the wall to the way I quickly closed my eyes again. Just opening my eyes had made me dizzy, and I swallowed hard, trying to control my churning stomach.

This gave new meaning to the phrase I had heard children telling each other about turning a frown upside down, and I used the thought to distract myself from the motion sickness caused by opening my eyes—though I did kill the smirk trying to break free. Holmes needed no encouragement to ever do this again, and I would not add to the worry I had seen in his gaze if his thoughts went the other direction.

“What did it do?”

I did not answer immediately, working to remember how many steps it was between the stairs and the settee. I had learned it once, when a case a few years before had left me unable to see for a few days, and that seemed the best way to get off my feet before another wave of vertigo did it for me.

“Watson?”

He interrupted my train of thought just before the memory broke free, and I scowled at him, eyes still closed. “How many steps is it to the door?” I asked instead of answering his question. A number floated from a distant memory. “Four? Was that what I said after the trafficking case?”

He made no reply, and I dared not open my eyes to decipher his thoughts. When the silence stretched for too long, I scowled again and pushed myself off the wall. I was relatively certain it was four to the door and seven to the settee, and if Holmes was not going to help, there was no reason for me not to try it on my own.

His hand tightened around my arm, steadying me as another wave of dizziness tried to send me to the floor. “Yes,” he said. “That is correct. What did it do, Watson?”

I stumbled toward the settee, leaning on him despite my attempts otherwise as vertigo assailed me with every step.

“Dizzy,” I finally answered shortly, one arm out to make sure I did not run into anything, “and vision flipped.”

“What do you mean ‘flipped?’”

I cracked an eye open, reflexively checking my location in relation to the settee, but immediately squeezed it shut at the sight of the settee hanging from the ceiling.

“I hate you so much right now,” was my only—grumbled—answer.

“I cannot help if you do not talk to me,” he admonished. “What do you mean ‘flipped?’”

“I mean you are walking on the ceiling,” I growled, falling into the cushions more than sitting as another intense wave of dizziness washed over me. “This had better wear off soon.”

He steadied me as I leaned back, rearranging the cushions to let me sit semi-reclined, and I did not need my sight to know his frown deepened when I gripped the cushion in an illogical attempt not to fall off. Leaning back was making it worse, and the room seemed to dip and whirl around me like a leaf stuck in a summer storm. I pushed a pillow aside to lay flat before realizing he had never answered.

“Holmes?” I prodded. “How long until this wears off?”

He hesitated. “Three or four hours,” he finally said quietly.

“Three or four _hours?”_ I echoed. “Holmes!”

“It was a few hours or all day,” he protested.

I scowled at him again. “The better option would be _none at all,”_ I growled. “You know I hate it when you experiment on me!”

He said nothing, probably recognizing that I was growing truly angry with him. I always had a shorter temper after being sick, and the feeling of the room moving on its own was doing nothing to calm my irritation that he had used me in another experiment. I had thought we were past him thinking this was acceptable.

The smallest movement was a disorienting torture as the room twisted and rotated around me. The ceiling was uniform enough that, when looking up, there was no difference between opening my eyes and closing them, but I could not turn my head without the room continuing the turn. Several times, I nearly needed the large bowl Holmes had left on the floor next to me as my stomach protested the moving room, and I let the silence stretch as I tried to ride it out.

Every minute seemed an age. I alternated between trying to hold still to keep the room from multiplying every movement and having to readjust as my shoulder twinged my position. I could not get comfortable for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and just when I got the room to stop imitating a top, my shoulder would force me to readjust. Knowing I would not fall off the settee did nothing to prevent me from grabbing at the cushions when the room threatened to flip me upside down with everything else, and I doubt I made it more than fifteen minutes before I finally voiced a question.

“Is there an antidote?” I asked, nearly scowling. My pride demanded I wait for it to pass on its own, but I would not be able to handle several hours of this. Just the movement required to speak sent the settee spinning beneath me.

“No,” he said quietly, his voice telling me that he had seated himself in his armchair. “Try to sleep.”

_That_ was not going to happen. I would never be able fall asleep with the way the room spun with every breath, and I could not take chloral hydrate to make myself sleep.

My shoulder twinged again, and I readjusted, gritting my teeth as the room performed a particularly sickening rotation. I fought the instinct to grab the cushion. I would not fall off no matter how much it felt I might. Hadn’t there been another sleep aid I had used as a child, one separate from the ones I had learned in medical school?

“Watson?” he asked.

I ignored him for a moment, chasing the idea that had bubbled to the surface.

A memory came of our kitchen. I sat in a corner watching Martha, our housekeeper, make a tea for my brother when he had complained of being unable to sleep. I had only tried it once, but the foul concoction had knocked me out before I had finished the cup, and it carried none of the danger the medical sleep aids—like chloral hydrate—carried. The ingredients came to mind as Holmes spoke again.

“Watson.”

“Hmm?”

“Talk to me. What are you feeling?”

“I told you that already,” I growled, refusing to open my eyes even to glare at him. “Do you have any idea how disorienting it is to know you are lying flat but feel as if you are spinning slow circles in a room that never halts its own rotations?”

He did not answer for a long moment. “Yes.”

“Good,” I snapped, slipping a hand behind a pillow to hide my white-knuckle grip as the room spun yet again. “You know what you did to me, then. Look in my bag. Do I have chamomile and lavender?”

I heard him walk across the room and start digging through the bag I had left near my desk. “Yes,” he finally answered.

“Make a weak tea with them, please. You can put some of each in a cup of what Mrs. Hudson brought up a few minutes ago.”

“That will taste terrible,” he protested, though I heard him set the bag aside and stand as he spoke.

“Yes, it will,” I agreed, still gripping the cushion behind a pillow, “but it is better than waiting, and I will find it disgusting no matter what. I never did understand what Harry liked about chamomile.”

I described how much of each needed to steep in the hot tea as I listened to him moving around, and a cup clinked on the table behind my head a couple of minutes later.

“Let me know when three minutes pass.”

He made no answer—which was just as well, with how close I was to losing my temper at him for using me in an experiment again—and silence fell over the sitting room, broken only by the sounds on the street.

“Three minutes,” he finally said when I was sure it had been closer to five.

Grabbing the back of the settee, I pulled myself upright and felt for the cup I had heard him place behind me, and he leaned forward. One hand landed on my back, steadying me, and the other passed me the cup.

“What will that do?” he asked as he leaned back. I swallowed a mouthful, heedless of how hot it still was. “I thought there was no treatment for vertigo.”

Sitting up had made it far worse, and I wanted to lie back down. I took another, larger mouthful before answering.

“There’s not,” I said shortly, grimacing even as I took another large drink, trying to dispense with the unpleasant taste as quickly as I could. “This will make me sleep.”

_“What?!”_

I frowned, wondering at the element of panic creeping into his voice, and took another large drink before deciding that was enough and turning to set the cup aside. He took the cup from me before it touched the table, setting it out of my reach a moment later.

“What is it?” I asked as I leaned back into the settee, trying to relax when the room refused to hold still.

“Watson! You are allergic to sedatives!”

Oh. That explained it.

“Not a sedative,” I said shortly, quelling the nausea at drinking half a cup of tea when my stomach was already upset. I tried to open my eyes to make sure he was listening to me, but the sight intensified the motion sickness, forcing me to close them again. “Just herbs,” I said instead. “I hate chamomile, but instead of the hour or more it takes to affect most, it combined with lavender makes me drowsy in minutes.”

He said nothing, but his sigh told me he had relaxed, and I felt the tea begin to take effect. Relaxing into the cushions, I started planning what I would do to pay him back for this. I would need to do something; flipping my vision was far too disorienting to let pass unchallenged.

I fell asleep before I could decide.


	2. Chapter 2

The tea made me sleep long enough for his experiment to wear off, and I woke to find Holmes still in his armchair, staring at me. He had obviously not expected his experiment to affect me so strongly, and he nearly drove me mad over the next few hours, worriedly making sure I suffered no lingering effects from either his experiment or the tea. Around reassuring him that I was fine, I made a point to specify several times how much I hated chamomile, hoping he would realize that he could not dose me without my knowledge. I, at least, would probably find it highly amusing if he tried, but only time would tell if he believed me.

I refrained from trying to use his worry to make him promise anything, however. I knew better than to think he would go along with any promise I could want.

It seemed to take forever, but he finally calmed down later that evening, and life returned to normal, with him in and out of the flat at all hours as he traced leads on various small cases. I helped when I could and saw patients when Holmes had no need of me. I had an informal practice I ran out of Baker Street, and the handful of patients that came to me each week were more than enough to occupy me when Holmes’ cases had no use for a second person. Holmes remained on edge for a day or two, probably expecting retribution of some sort, but he eventually relaxed when I made no mention of the incident. He thought I had decided to let it go, and I saw no reason to correct him. He would find out otherwise soon enough.

Five days passed before I saw my chance. Holmes hurried out as I arrived home from an errand, calling something about returning in a few days, and I waved him off, hiding my mischievous grin until after I had closed the door.

“What are you planning, Doctor?”

My grin changed to more of a smirk as Mrs. Hudson stared at me from the door to her rooms. “Are you sure you want to know?” I asked in return.

She thought for a moment. “This has something to do with that experiment last week, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does,” I replied easily. “Do you want to help?”

“I know better,” she said with a faint laugh. The door shut behind her with a faint click, and I chuckled as I climbed the stairs to my room.

It took several minutes to find the kit I had carried in Afghanistan, but I finally spotted it in the depths of one of the boxes beneath my bed. I carried it and a newer, smaller version I kept in the desk in my room down to the sitting room, where I opened them on that desk.

Several sewing needles and multiple spools of black, white, and grey thread lay exactly where I remembered placing them, and my grin returned. This was going to be immensely entertaining—for me, anyway.

Threading a needle, I entered his room and began working. First, I short sheeted his bed, then, using the fine stitches I used when suturing a wound, I sewed every trouser leg shut at the knee and every shirtsleeve shut at the elbow. I made sure to hide my stitches within the fabric, and when I finished, I put each piece back to the way I had found it. I hoped he would not notice my handiwork until he found it difficult to dress, but even if he noticed it before that, the reaction would be worth it. Maybe this would make him think twice about using me in another experiment.

I nearly laughed at the thought. I was beginning to doubt _anything_ could do that. If nothing else, his reaction might quell the faint lingering irritation I still felt at the disorientation his experiment had caused. The few times I had been plagued with such vertigo before his experiment, the sensation had accompanied a high fever, leaving me more delirious than lucid, and I decided I preferred that over being fully aware as the room whirled around me on an axis of its own. I never wanted to experience such a thing again, and I thought he needed something extremely inconvenient to even the score a bit.

Finishing the last pair of trousers, I put the sewing kits back in their places and lost myself in the pages of a novel. I had two or three days of silence ahead of me, and I planned to make full use of them.

* * *

“Watson?”

The door below slammed shut, and I looked up from my journal as Holmes strode through the door four days after he had left.

“It must have been an interesting case,” I said with a grin, mostly to get a rise out of him.

One keen glance noted everything from the journal in my hand to the manuscripts on my desk, plus many other things I could never guess, and he brushed the comment off with the flick of his hand.

“It was not a case, a fact which you already know,” he chided, tossing his overcoat to the back of his chair.

I smirked. He was right. I had known it probably was not a case. A several-day case outside London would likely have required both of us, and he would have either waited for me to return before leaving or left directions on how to follow him.

“What was it, then?”

“Mycroft needed something from our parents’ estate and could not retrieve it himself,” he answered, heading toward his room. “It was a simple matter to wait for the current residents to leave before I entered the back garden.”

The _current residents?_ If his parents did not live there anymore, why did he still refer to it as their estate?

He entered his bedroom before I could voice the question, and I decided it would be safer to remain quiet.

I heard him moving around, dumping his valise on his bed as he always did before reaching into his wardrobe to change out of his travel clothes. He paced the length of the room, unable to hold still even when tired from several days’ travel, and I started a countdown, noting where he was and when he would find the modifications I had made to his clothes.

Three…two…one…

“Watson!”

I could not kill the large grin that split my face, but I did silence it, hiding my expression in my journal.

_“Watson!”_

I fought to keep my voice level. “Is something the matter, Holmes?”

“You know very well what the problem is!” his frustrated answer came from the depths of the bedroom. “What did you do to my clothes?!”

“Well, you _did_ ask Mrs. Hudson to take in a few of your shirts last week,” I called back, barely keeping my amusement out of the words.

“This is not what I meant!”

I could not speak without laughing aloud, and I made no answer, listening to him dig further into his wardrobe to check every piece of clothing he had. Any second now…

“Watson!”

Still unable to speak without laughing, I said nothing, and silence reigned for several minutes. Footsteps finally came to the door, and, shaking with silenced laughter, I looked up as he walked into the sitting room, scowling darkly at me.

I had left one outfit alone in my sabotage, knowing he would not want to wear his travel-soiled clothes until we could fix what I had done, but he absolutely despised the tailored suit one of our more eccentric clients had given him. I completely understood why—even dark blue looked extremely out of place on a man I had only seen wear black, brown, and grey when not in disguise. I laughed harder.

“The experiment?” he confirmed after a moment, still scowling at me.

It took another minute to get my laughter under control. “Of course,” I finally replied, still grinning widely. “I could not turn the room on its end, but this worked well enough. It will take you three or four hours to remove all those stitches.”

He rolled his eyes at my amusement—and at the symmetry. “You have seen me with a needle,” he replied, refusing to voice that he did not want to fix it alone. I merely smirked and handed him a pair of sewing scissors. I had good reason to leave him to fix it himself, and he knew it. He strode back into his bedroom without a word, and I returned to my journal, still unable to kill my wide grin.

I finished what I was doing and slowly put my journal away before retrieving the other pair of sewing scissors I had left in my desk. He worked alone for about twenty minutes before I joined him, but the relief in his gaze when he heard me enter faded behind a forced scowl when I chuckled at the sight of him in a blue suit. Even his darkest glare could not kill my amusement, and he finally rolled his eyes and turned back to the shirt in his hand. Together, it took only a couple of hours to set his wardrobe to rights, but I hoped he used this as incentive not to use me in another experiment. My friend was a detective genius, but some things were apparently harder for him to learn than others, one of which being the fact that I was _not_ his test subject. We had been arguing about this for nearly twenty years. I would have thought a brilliant detective such as my friend would have put the clues together by this point.

His irritation remained visible nearly the entire time we sat in his room tearing out stitches, and I got so much amusement out of his reaction that I almost confessed what I had done to his sheets. He ruined that himself, however, shortly before I went to bed. The near confession became a scowl when he made a remark about the drivel I must have written while he was gone, and I thought twice about taking back half of my revenge.

He did not find what I had done to his bed until he tried to lie down. I chuckled when his irritated growl carried through the floorboards.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always greatly appreciated :)


End file.
